Knowledge Base on Economic Statistics and Macroeconomic Standards Annette Becker, UNSD

Timeline  July 2007: Expert Group on Industrial Statistics supported the creation of a knowledge base on economic statistics at its meeting  July 2008: Prototype of the knowledge base, focusing on relevant information for industrial statistics was presented to the Expert Group on IS at its meeting

Timeline – cont.  July – October 2008: Meetings within UNSD with interested parties to discuss the structure, management and maintenance of the knowledge base  November 2008: Beta version of the knowledge base was launched – a limited number of countries were contacted for feedback and to provide documents

Objective  Provide a centralized repository of information on all aspects of methodology and best country practices for the collection, analysis and dissemination of all areas of economic statistics and macroeconomic standards  Facilitate the international sharing and exchange of knowledge on economic statistics programmes as well as the provision of guidance to countries

Objective – cont.  Serve as a single web-based access point by combining information made available by various sources and by optimizing the collection, organization, and display of all stored information  Rationalize and streamline information finding  Main target: Statistical community in developing countries

Why KB format?  Is not a static collection of information, but a dynamic resource  User interaction, which distinguishes it from any basic or complex search engine  Guarantees easy maintenance  Information is presented coherently throughout the system  Information is constantly monitored and updated without delay

Information retrieval  Knowledge base allows users to look for information in two ways: (1) by conducting a search or (2) by browsing through the pre-defined structure

Information retrieval – cont. Conduct a search:  User already knows what he/she is looking for  User can locate the relevant document through appropriate keywords or tags  Fast retrieval of information (Search function performed as full-text search, including search within PDF format)

Information retrieval – cont. Browse the pre-defined structure:  User is looking for more general or introductory information to a subject  User may not be able to pinpoint exactly what kind of document he/she is looking for  Pre-defined structure communicates to the user what kind of information is available and what levels of detail exist for the grouping of information  Allows the user to easily see related documents grouped together

Management  UNSD will be the custodian of the knowledge base with cross references to websites hosted by national and international agencies  Knowledge base administrator has unlimited access to all areas of the knowledge base  Focal points from the statistical domains have limited access to certain areas of the knowledge base

Maintenance  UNSD is responsible for the day-to-day and overall maintenance  Perform yearly inventory of documents included in the knowledge base (check documents for relevance and timeliness)  Compile a country-specific and subject- matter oriented list of documents for each country for revision

Quality of documents  International standards/recommendations have gone through international approval process no further quality check  Country practices from official agencies (e.g. NSOs, Ministries) are considered the property of the respective country no further quality check  Articles and presentations from other sources on country practices quality check by the respective country or UNSD focal point

Technical note  InstantKB 2.0, an off-the shelf software product, was used for development  Previous version of this software was utilized for the 2010 Census knowledge base and the Comtrade knowledge base  Link to the knowledge base: